The Exodus Towers #2

In the days and weeks that followed, life in Camp Exodus returned to a semblance of normal, and mourning turned into stoic resolve. The luxury of movable auras had basically vanished, and with supply shipments to orbit still irregular at best, the area within the Elevator’s aura became very crowded. Skyler found himself called upon daily to fetch things from the city, and his request list grew faster than he could fill it.

Of the two hundred original aura towers, only thirteen remained in camp after one lone surviving tower was found on what had been Mercy Road. That “road,” along with Water Road, had to be abandoned.

With so few towers left, Tania and the others were hypersensitive to any request for use. Unless absolutely necessary, the towers were held in reserve. So it fell on Skyler, and his group of newfound immunes, to scavenge.

A mystery lingered, one that Skyler found himself often thinking about despite the willful denial exhibited by the rest of the camp. Where had the other three groups of towers gone? Only one such group was accounted for—“red circle” as it had come to be called. These were parked in an area around the Builders’ crashed ship near the reservoir, a place now labeled off-limits.

The other three groups remained unfound and unsought, much to Skyler’s chagrin. Every morning, or at least those he spent in camp, he would wake to the sight of their paths. Carved straight through trees and buildings, the scars left behind by the tower groups felt like an invitation to seek them out, and he wondered constantly where they’d gone.

It didn’t take a lot of imagination to conclude they now ringed other crashed Builder ships. But only four groups had vacated Belém. Tania saw five small ships through her telescope, spread out from the main vessel when the second Elevator arrived. So where was the fifth? And why didn’t it need a group of towers around it?

Perhaps that one would be the easiest to explore, he mused.

As of yet, the colony had no capacity to link into old mapping satellites and download the imagery they continued to compile. Anchor Station used to have that capability, but it came from a combination of Black Level and Green Level, a marriage that no longer existed.

With each passing day Skyler felt the desire grow to follow them. He figured they’d find the same terrifying creatures at each, but perhaps one would be easier to assault than the others. Fighting creatures that moved that fast in a dense cloud was one thing, but add the rainforest to the mix and the prospect of beating them seemed impossible.

Often, in the dark of night, with only the songs of nocturnal curassow and the occasional cry from a night heron to keep him company, Skyler found himself studying a child’s school slate. He’d found the devices by the dozen in a Catholic school not far from the Elevator, and a few still held a charge. One program on the device taught geography and included a highly detailed map of Earth, replete with satellite photos from as recently as 2260. He’d traced three lines across it, radiating out from Belém and color-coded to the still-missing tower groups: purple, emerald, and a yellow he called “sunlight.” The red towers near Belém he’d marked as well.

Certainly the exercise provided no clue as to where the towers had stopped. He even went so far as to draw the lines all the way back around the planet, reconnecting with Belém as they came around the other side. One night he calculated how long it would take them to circumnavigate the globe, assuming their speed remained constant. He doubted they’d return that way, but it passed the time.

The child’s learning tool also proved useful for scouting Belém. He could zoom in on details as fine as five meters across, and even alter the angle to get some sense of perspective.

Each time the sun rose, Skyler dreaded the hours that would follow. Two things happened each morning in camp. First, Karl would inform him of the new additions to his growing scavenger wish list, a list the man now curated at Skyler’s request. Karl had become his Prumble, in that sense, and life became a bit more bearable when Skyler could tell people to talk to Karl if their request didn’t make it onto the day’s priority list.

Second, Skyler would seek out the other immunes and casually invite them to join him in his foray into the city. It had been a rude awakening, the first morning after they tried to reach the Builders’ ship, when Skyler gave the immunes orders. He’d forgotten what they’d all been through, and forgotten that no formal agreement existed as to how long they would stay, or if they would even help. They were free for the first time in years, and so to avoid the appearance of bossing them around, Skyler had to dance around the subject and take care to avoid giving orders.

So he would ask, nice and casual, over breakfast. “Going over to that plumber’s supply today, for more PVC pipe and pumps. Anyone up for a hike?” A different question each time. More often than not, Pablo and Vanessa would agree to come. He suspected they were sticking around only because they hadn’t come up with a better idea yet.

As for Ana, well, Skyler suspected he could not get rid of her if he wanted to. She went everywhere with him, and if he hadn’t insisted that she move into Vanessa’s APC, he sensed she would want to continue sleeping on the bench across from his. Skyler didn’t need the gossip that would cause.

For the most part, though, he didn’t mind her at his side. The young woman was bright, alert, and could hold her own in any conversation. Good company, on the whole. The erratic reckless actions seemed to come and go with no rhyme or reason, but with each day that passed since Davi died she seemed to get herself a bit more under control. Once in a while she would descend into a state of deep depression, lasting hours or even days. Skyler quickly learned a delicate balancing act for such times: Leave her alone, and make sure she doesn’t wander off.

One evening he found himself sitting alone with her at the edge of the river, each with a fishing pole in hand. She’d been quiet the entire day, since Skyler had chastised her for shooting at a snake that had surprised her in the slums. Not ten minutes before she did that, they’d spotted evidence of recent subhuman presence in the area, and he’d ordered absolute silence as they trekked through the crumbling neighborhood. The echoes of her gunshot rolled through the streets like thunder, and though no subhumans came, he’d let frustration and anger get the better of him in admonishing her.

“Ana,” he said, his voice breaking the trancelike state brought on by watching a lure bob on the rippling water.

She glanced up at him, a slight defiance still in her eyes.

“I’m sorry I spoke harshly earlier. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“You called me stupid.”

Skyler feigned confusion. “I don’t remember the specific words—”

“Specifically,” Ana said, “you said it was a stupid f*cking move, and that I needed to get my ‘shit’ under control.”

He winced. “Like I said, I’m sorry. I just … I’d appreciate it if you tried to follow my orders when we’re out there. That wasn’t the first time, and it puts us all in danger. Part of being in a squad is keeping everyone in mind when you act, not just yourself.”

Her eyes flared and she came right to the precipice of flying into a rage, but then, remarkably, she backed down. She visibly deflated, and after a few seconds of staring at the dazzling twilight sun that glinted off the river, she began to nod. “Davi used to say the same. Well, not exactly the same; he knew how to speak to a lady even when angry.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re right, and for you I will try. I’ll try to get my shit under control.” She grinned as she recited the line.

Skyler found himself smiling, too.

Unlike Darwin, which dried up like a prune when wet season passed, Belém still received a healthy dose of showers. Not nearly as much as when the colonists arrived, but enough to keep the world around the camp green and lush. Gardens began to flourish within the limited space inside the aura, though they required constant tending. Luckily there was no shortage of bored colonists to pull weeds, trim overzealous vines, or maintain the insect nets.

Rats became a problem. A big problem, once they started to get into the supply tents. Skyler and Ana brought back as many traps as they could find, but they were either ineffectual or in too short supply.

One day, when the sun blazed overhead, Skyler and Ana hiked out down to the harbor in hopes of finding watercraft that could be moored on the river within the aura. Another boon to the livable space within the protective sphere, just like the motor homes. So they hoped, anyway. As they ambled toward the boatyard, Ana noted a line of houses that had become overrun with cats. The felines lounged all over the decaying structures, their tails flapping back and forth as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

“I bet there’s no rats in there,” Ana joked.

“Not likely to be, no,” Skyler agreed. The idea hit them both at the same time.

They returned to camp and borrowed one of the flatbed trucks. After a quick stop at a veterinary clinic for cages, Skyler and Ana spent an afternoon befriending as many of the feral creatures as they could. Many had lost their trust of humans, but some seemed to be survivors from before the disease and remembered that people meant a life of constant pampering. These entered the cages without too much struggle, though by sunset Skyler found his arms were laced with scratches. Ana fared better, having worn long sleeves.

“Might be a good idea to give each other rabies and tetanus shots,” Skyler noted, frowning at the red lines on his forearms.

Ana grinned and winked at him. “Oh, el diablo! Your bunk or mine?”

He chuckled but said nothing. Her flirtations started innocently enough, but she grew bolder with it every day. Sooner or later he would need to sit her down and clarify their friendship, but for the time being he was loath to do anything that might trigger another bout of depression in the young woman. She’d been through a hell of a lot, and at an age when hormones raged within her. She’d spent most of her years of puberty as a member of Gabriel’s clan, with all that entailed, or alone with only her brother for company. He couldn’t begrudge her a little outlet for her emotions, not now.

Besides, it reminded him a little of Samantha.

The cats were a huge hit, as much for the entertainment they provided as their rodent-catching skills. For the first time since the towers left camp Skyler found colonists smiling, saying “hello” or “g’day” when he walked by.

Two months passed with no further sighting of the black-clad subhumans, save for the occasional report of shadows lurking near the edge of the cloud.

Jury-rigged security cameras placed around the roughly circular haze picked up subhumans entering the area on two occasions. After that, no one questioned the need for constant monitoring of the site.

Skyler assisted in a complex project requiring four days and a dozen people. They took two aura towers out to the site of a skyscraper abandoned while under construction. There, the group set upon a tower crane that had yet to be lifted to the topmost floors. The machine was separated from a loading winch, and two smaller cranes were used to hoist the massive object onto a flatbed truck. This took an entire day. The other three days were spent navigating the twenty-meter-long steel lattice arm back to camp.

After another week of trial and error, the camp soon had a working cargo loader. One of the scientists even figured out how to program the controls so that it could repeat the same function with little supervision. Push a button and the huge arm would move whatever had been attached to it up and over to a waiting climber. Press it again and the motion was reversed.

The system still required a team to spin the climber car forty-five degrees so that the next slot could be loaded or unloaded, but no one complained. The process of lifting cargo to orbit had been significantly streamlined.

Idle hands also made short work of the construction of a wall around camp. At three meters tall, the barricade had nothing on Nightcliff’s massive metal face, but it would keep subhumans and larger wildlife out.

On one rare afternoon when not a single cloud marred the sky, Ana came to Skyler. She’d been gone all day with Vanessa and Pablo, and he hadn’t bothered to find out where they had been. “Follow me,” she said simply.

Intrigued and a little concerned, he agreed. Vanessa and Pablo waited at the edge of camp and fell in with them. None of the other colonists asked where the group was going, as they often left without a word save from Karl.

As Skyler walked with the other three immunes, he realized they all shouldered backpacks, whereas he had only the usual equipment he carried on himself. They took him west, leaving Mercy Road on a route that would bring them to the modern buildings and harbors that lined the waterfront along the Pará.

“Where are we going?” Skyler asked.

“Shush,” Ana replied.

He caught a playful undertone in her voice and decided to let the mystery continue. His eyes, though, kept returning to the backpacks they wore. They’ve provisioned a boat, he thought. They’re going to say goodbye and sail off. Maybe they’ll ask me to come along, out of earshot of the other colonists.

It startled him to realize that he didn’t know what answer he would give if asked.

Well before the harbor, though, the three immunes turned from the road and entered the marble lobby of a luxury hotel. Other than a few skeletons near the welcome desk, the place showed no signs of wear or use. Skyler realized that tiny LED spotlights recessed into the ceiling were on, creating pools of warm yellow light at regular intervals along the space.

Skyler followed Ana into a well-lit elevator, and when she tapped the button for the penthouse, the doors slid closed.

“I’m not sure this is safe,” Skyler noted, as he imagined the cables that pulled the metal box up the shaft. “Five years of neglect …”

Pablo chuckled.

The indicator on the wall counted through all fifty-six floors before reaching “PH.” A chime sounded and the doors slid open once again. A small lobby greeted them, and beyond that a pair of fine wood doors. Someone had hacked them open with an axe, which leaned against the wall nearby.

“After you,” Ana said, and bowed. “Tonight, we set the real world aside.”

Skyler found himself inside a spacious apartment, trimmed and furnished in luxurious fashion. The modern décor was a study in hardwood and shades of gray: bleached slat floors, black carpets, and walls done in two-tone vertical gray stripes. Black leather couches and chairs were backed by brushed-metal supports. The kitchen had every convenience imaginable, all stainless steel surrounded by black marble and whitewashed hardwood cabinets.

All of this paled compared to the curved glass wall that ran the entire length of the space. The sky outside blazed orange and red around a sun half-set behind the mountains to the west.

As Skyler took in the view, Ana set to work in the dining area, placing cutlery and candles upon the thick wood table. Vanessa took to the kitchen, hoisting her backpack onto the counter and removing the contents within. Two bottles of wine, plus something wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied with string, as if she’d just popped out to the corner store.

Pablo ventured out on the balcony and dropped his pack near a professional grill built into the wall beside an empty lap pool.

“What’s going on?” Skyler asked Ana.

“It’s my birthday,” she said, and offered him a half smile as she lit a candle.

“Isn’t this a bit excessive—oh.” He swallowed the rest of his comment, realizing his mistake. Ana’s birthday meant it was Davi’s birthday, too. “Shit. Sorry.”

A loud pop saved him from further embarrassment. In the kitchen, Vanessa giggled as champagne erupted from a green bottle and splashed onto the floor. It might have been, Skyler thought, the first time he’d heard the former lawyer laugh.

Dinner consisted of chops Pablo had cut from a boar he’d felled that morning. He’d grilled the meat to perfection and it dripped with hot grease as Skyler shoveled the first bite into his mouth. For a side Pablo had roasted vegetables inside packets of aluminum foil with a dash of cooking oil, salt, and pepper.

The trio had brought enough wine for each of them to claim two bottles, and a wet bar within the apartment offered up a dozen different options for harder libations.

For a time no one spoke, at least not verbally. The chatter of cutlery on porcelain, the murmured coos of pleasure brought by rich, flavorful food, said everything that needed saying. The meal eclipsed everything Skyler had eaten in months. No, he thought, years, as he savored a sip of the merlot. Better even than the bowl of ramen that Prumble had served him after his journey through no-man’s-land.

And then Vanessa poured the wine. She said a toast in Portuguese, then wished happy birthday to Ana on behalf of the whole world.

Ana blushed and took a healthy gulp of wine.

With food and alcohol consumed the birthday party started in earnest. Skyler and Pablo handled the task of clearing the table by flinging dirty dishes from the fifty-seventh-floor balcony. Ana fiddled with the entertainment panel until she had the entire place flooded with music that blended electronica, fizz-def, and traditional Latin instruments. Soon she and Vanessa kicked off their shoes and the two danced on top of a polished teak coffee table, Ana with a bottle of champagne in hand, as the deep rhythms boomed.

Skyler thought back to the first time he’d ever seen her, twirling in graceful arcs, a long white dress flowing around her toned body. Her movements had been fluid, even delicate. Now, dressed in khaki shorts and a stained tank top, her hiking boots kicked off, she showed a different side. Skyler thought of the university girls who filled dark clubs in Utrecht on the weekends. More than a few had warmed his bed back then, during the peak of his transition to manhood, before he’d joined the Luchtmacht. The Darwin Elevator had arrived a few years before, but the explosion of hope the device created in the world’s youth still raged. A fine time to be an eighteen-year-old, he mused.

Ana’s eyes were closed, lost in the thumping, aggressive tune that blared from recessed speakers in the walls. For her to come of age in a post-disease world somehow filled him with more anger at the Builders than all the billions who had died or succumbed, and all the survivors who remained trapped within the auras. They’d stolen a proper, carefree childhood from this young woman, and so many others. Ana just had the fortune, or misfortune, perhaps, to live on as an immune. How could he begrudge her the desire to act with reckless abandon now and then?

She had earned the right, and much more.

Well after midnight, the four immunes lay haphazardly on cushions they’d amassed on the wide balcony. Stars filled the sky above, and the silken voice of Ella Fitzgerald wafted over them from the penthouse suite, just loud enough to fill the occasional lapse in conversation.

Each immune shared their story, in more detail than previously given. Pablo, with a little wine, showed signs of a sly sense of humor under his strong and silent fa?ade. Even Vanessa, who spoke last, opened up somewhat. The mental scars she bore from her imprisonment in Gabriel’s lodge ran deep, though, and she avoided the topic entirely.

Skyler’s experience in Darwin fascinated the others, and so he spent the most time talking. He told them of the events that led to Tania’s discovery of the new Builder ship, and how they wound up coming to Belém. He also told them of the scavenger crew he’d run, and the fate that had met both them and their beloved aircraft, the Melville.

Wine began to dwindle as dawn approached, and the gaps in conversation widened. Soon the others slept soundly under the stars, but Skyler found it difficult to snooze there. He’d always preferred a dark, quiet room. More than once he found himself jerking awake, caught halfway between a dream and reality. At some point Ana decided to use Skyler’s stomach as a pillow, and he had to cup her head in both hands to get out from beneath.

He left the three of them there and crept inside. A long draw from his canteen chased the aftertaste of alcohol and roast pig away. More time would be required before it could do the same for the headache he felt coming on. He relieved himself out the window of one of the bedrooms, then grabbed a blanket and pulled it over his shoulders.

Yawning, Skyler settled on the big leather couch in the main room of the suite, and slept.

He woke to bright sunlight, reflected into the west-facing room off the white marble pillars that lined the edge of the balcony outside, and promptly snapped his eyes shut again. It must be past noon already, he thought, and wondered if their absence from the colony had become a concern. He’d neglected to bring a handheld.

The smell of coffee kept him from a return to sleep. When he sat up, he realized a mug rested on the table near him, steam rising from its lip. He rubbed his eyes and took in the room. Ana, Vanessa, and Pablo all sat on the floor around the low table, each with a mug of their own in hand.

“Morning,” Skyler said, and sipped. He would have used more sugar, but he didn’t complain.

“We need to speak with you,” Pablo said.

Uh-oh. “Should I switch back to wine first?”

“Stick with the coffee,” Ana said, her voice light.

He didn’t know exactly how to take that remark. After a quick study of the dark brown liquid in the cup, he tilted it back and downed the remainder. “Right, then. What’s on your mind, birthday girl?”

“The three of us have been talking,” she said, “since dawn. Talking about our future, and yours.”

“Is there more coffee?” Skyler asked, glancing toward the kitchen.

“We talked about what you told us,” she went on, ignoring his lame attempt at evasion. “About your crew, I mean.”

“Oh,” he managed to say. The three of them looked very serious now. All the previous night’s revelry banished with the break of day. My old crew. Yeah, I really f*cked that up, what about it? “Is there more wine?”

“We thought it might be best to make this little band we’ve formed official,” Vanessa said, imparting an authority in her voice like only a lawyer could. “We want to be your new crew.”

Skyler stared at the three immunes in stunned silence.

Pablo spread his hands. “We already are, really. It’s just never been … eh, stated.”

“You all are free now,” Skyler said. “You don’t have to do this. Stay if you like. Relax. Hell, you deserve that. Or go, as Elias did. I don’t need—”

Ana moved to sit beside him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Skyler, each of us decided to stay for our own reasons, since that night. Since Elias left, though, things have been different. It’s like none of us want to become too close, in case someone else leaves.”

“Or dies,” Pablo noted. The offhand comment stalled Ana’s speech.

“Yes. Or that,” she agreed, her eyes as distant as her voice. After a second she shook her head slightly and focused on Skyler again. “You shouldn’t have to wonder if we’ll be around tomorrow. You shouldn’t feel guilty asking us to help on your scavenging trips. We want this little family, this crew, to be official. So the camp will know they can rely on us. So you can rely on us.”

Skyler stood and walked to the kitchen. He emptied another packet of powdered coffee into his mug and poured hot water on top. A new crew. The thought repeated over and over in his head.

The faces of his former crew flashed in front of him. Jake, Angus, Takai … all dead. Then there was Samantha. Skyler felt guilty about a lot of things he’d done since the disease drove him to Darwin, but none more so than the day he left Samantha behind on Gateway. For all he knew, she was dead, too. He wondered if he’d ever find out.

Why anyone would want to follow him he couldn’t fathom, and yet it seemed to be a curse he couldn’t shake. But deep down he knew one thing for certain: He didn’t want any of his new friends to leave. He wanted them at his side. Needed them. No matter how much he might try, he would always be the oddball among the colonists. The idea of spending the rest of his life as some loner, some freak of nature, filled him with dread.

Skyler stirred the coffee with an ornate silver spoon. “If you guys fall in with me, call me your leader, wouldn’t that make me some kind of replacement Gabriel?”

“No. For starters,” Vanessa said, “you’re not a complete a*shole.”

“Or a murderer,” Ana added.

“Or a rapist.”

Pablo said the last, and to Skyler’s surprise Vanessa didn’t recoil from the word.

Skyler fought a smile and focused on his drink. “That may be true, but I don’t want to be some dictator here. If we’re going to be a crew it’ll be a crew of equals. I may call the shots on one mission; maybe it’s one of you on the next. Everyone gets a say in where we go and what we do.”

“Fine with me,” Ana said.

“Yes,” Pablo said.

Vanessa nodded.

Only after he’d said the words did he realize he’d just proposed that their crew run the same way Tania ran the colony. Consensus, discussion, mutual respect. He wondered if he’d been too hard on her. Karl and the others, too.

A few seconds of silence followed, and then Skyler raised his mug and held it over the table between them. “A crew, then.”

Each raised their own cup, and the four clanked together.

“Wait,” Skyler said. The others froze and watched him retreat to the kitchen again. He found four clean champagne flutes in a cabinet, and an unopened bottle. “Where I come from, it’s bad luck to toast with anything other than alcohol.”

They each smiled and plucked an offered glass. “To the crew,” Ana said, raising her flute. The toast was echoed in unison, and everyone drank. Skyler never cared much for champagne, but here, now, the bright and sweet liquid seemed the perfect choice to seal their pact.

“So,” Vanessa said when her glass was empty, “what will we do first?”

Despite all of Skyler’s talk about being equals, they all looked to him. He finished his drink and set the glass down. “First? I think we’ll become teachers.”
Darwin, Australia

30.AUG.2283

GRIT AND SAND filled the air of Nightcliff’s landing yard, churned by the thundering engines of the Advantage.

Even from within the windowless cabin, Samantha could hear the fine powder blast the aircraft’s fuselage. Some portion would get sucked back into the turbofans themselves, which meant hours of cleaning and tests later.

The Advantage had been originally specced for short-range delivery work. Packages and parcels mostly. As such the interior had no conveniences for passengers. Just a pair of hot seats that butted against the cockpit wall. The rest of the cargo compartment was all bare steel walls, ugly rivets, and rows of ring hooks on the floor and ceiling to attach plastic nets.

The netting draped over four large stacks of pillow-shaped bags, each filled with topsoil from a field in nearby Queensland. On the trip out, the same space was occupied by fresh environment suit packs. More aura-scrubbed air and water for the workers who filled the dirt bags.

She’d made the trip dozens of times in the last few months. All the scavengers had. The crews ran like clockwork and worked like slaves, all under her stern direction. And she under Grillo’s.

The craft lurched and Samantha heard a dull thud. “Secure on pad three.” The pilot’s voice came through her borrowed flight helmet. She didn’t bother to acknowledge. Instead she stood and tossed the helmet into the foldout seat she’d occupied. Tired legs carried her past the cargo to the rear-loading ramp. At the flip of a switch, the aircraft’s rear hatch opened like a whale’s mouth.

Bright sunlight began to fill the cabin, in a sharp line that climbed her boots, then her legs, then her torso. Sam raised her arm instinctively as the glaring rays reached her face.

Once her eyes adjusted, she realized a welcoming party waited outside. The sight gave her a brief flashback to the inspection Russell Blackfield had made of the Melville, so many months ago. Only it was Grillo who now waited at the bottom of the ramp, and his posse of bodyguards were plain-clothed.

She’d seen little of Nightcliff’s leader since the alien cube had been recovered from Old Downtown. He’d left her at the airport gate that night, almost as an afterthought, before he and his Jacobite friends had caravanned off with their strange prize.

What had become of the object, Sam had no idea. Grillo had not mentioned it once, and she’d been reluctant to ask. Whatever the hell it is, I don’t want anything to do with it. Nightmares of that mission still woke her some nights, and Sam wanted nothing more than to forget she’d ever seen the thing.

Since that day, all of her scavenging requests came via messages delivered by courier. His promise to allow her a visit with Kelly had not been mentioned, and with each day her desire to keep working for the man dwindled.

“Dirt,” Sam said by way of greeting. “Six tons. As requested.”

“Nutrient-rich topsoil,” Grillo said to correct her. “Excellent work, Miss Rinn. As always.”

Sam shrugged, leaned against the aircraft’s wall, and studied the men with him. They made no move to come aboard and start the unloading process. “Dump it here as if my plane had a bowel movement, or …?”

“A crew is on the way to handle transport,” Grillo said. “I came to see you, actually.”

“Well, here I am.”

A patient smile formed on the slumlord’s thin lips. “Would you come with us, please?”

“Am I in some kind of trouble?”

“No, no,” Grillo said. “The opposite, in fact. Kelly’s here. I thought you might want to see her.”

Sam bounded down the ramp, the clangs from her boots echoing off the interior of the cargo bay. “Here? Why?”

Grillo dismissed her concern with a wave. “To get her some fresh air, I suppose.”

“What kind of hole have you kept her in?” Sam asked. Four heavy steps down the ramp and she stood in front of Grillo, towering over him. His bodyguards moved forward, hands reaching for concealed weapons.

“Relax, everyone,” Grillo said. His voice had an uncanny ability to calm, and he used it to full effect. “Kelly waits for you on the roof above my office. I’ll give the two of you some time to chat, and then we can discuss the future.”

The future. Sam let her fists unclench, and she thought back to the terms Grillo had set when she started working for him. He wanted to be convinced of her allegiance. Only then would he release Kelly.

He gestured toward the control building that straddled the Elevator cord. Sam glanced back and barked an order to her pilot, James, to return to the airport after the workers emptied the cargo bay. The old man waved from the interior door. A former commercial pilot, he had no nose for combat but handled any aircraft they sat him in as if it were an extension of himself. When sober, at least.

Grillo set a languid pace across the dusty yard. In dry season Nightcliff became a miserable place, hot and bone dry. The sweet salty smell that came in from the ocean during the wet months turned into an odor Sam liked to call “rotten seaweed.” Gusts came in from the water in irregular intervals and filled the air with that stench. Less than a minute out of the Advantage Sam found herself breathing through her mouth.

“Three months,” Samantha said. “I’ve been wondering when you’d make good on your promise. I figured you’d forgotten about it after we found that—”

“I must remind you not to talk of prior missions,” Grillo said in a rush. “Forgive my delay. I’ve been busy.”

He had at that. Though Sam had not been allowed to leave the airport, she had heard plenty of talk at Woon’s. Garden buildings fell to Grillo on an almost daily basis. Every week one of the skyscrapers that still had power seemed to suddenly find reason to form an alliance with the man. Those that didn’t were increasingly isolated, and talk of running street battles was a constant topic at the tavern.

Gardens flourished on the rooftops of those buildings that did join his fold, and they were defended with zeal by Jacobites according to the gossip. Indeed the sect seemed to be experiencing an explosion of converts. Some spoke of groups of the religious freaks patrolling streets around the fortress and out into the Maze. Temple Sulam, the Jacobites’ original house of worship in Darwin, attracted huge crowds on Sundays now. Ten thousand worshippers on a recent morning, by some accounts.

Sam stole a glance at Grillo and wondered how deep his ties to the cult ran.

The inside of Nightcliff’s control tower offered little respite from the repugnant furnace of the yard. A bit cooler, perhaps, and the smell changed from ocean decay to the stale, sweaty scent of a locker room. Air-con on the fritz, Sam guessed. She knew of at least a dozen places within a two-hour flight from Darwin to fetch spare parts for the equipment, but she kept that to herself.

Grillo took the stairs with the same maddeningly slow pace. Sam mustered every last ounce of self-control not to elbow him aside and rush to the roof to see her friend.

The flights of worn concrete steps ran together in a blur. Sam had made this trek once before, when Grillo summoned her the night of her escape attempt, but it hadn’t seemed so far. Her thighs burned from the effort by the time two of Grillo’s bodyguards stayed behind on a landing, an indication that they were close.

The slumlord opened the next door and Sam was hit by a wall of humid air. He went through and led her down a narrow corridor that vaguely reminded her of Gateway Station, and for a second she saw herself back there, Kelly in front of her as they scurried from one junction to another evading Alex Warthen’s guards. Unpainted concrete walls were almost hidden beneath pipes that rusted at their joints. The heat made breathing a chore.

A door at the far end entered into another stairwell, and here Grillo went down. Odd route, Samantha thought. Grillo must be trying to prevent her from seeing something. That, or he didn’t want her to be seen. Either option made gears turn in her mind.

He descended only one flight before he pushed through another door. This one led into a foyer Samantha had previously seen. It fronted the office Grillo used, formerly occupied by Russell Blackfield.

“Still warming Blackfield’s chair?” she asked before her brain could tell her mouth to shut.

Instead of a spoken response, Grillo forged ahead through double doors.

Sam barely recognized the office within. None of Russell’s sloppy furnishings or tasteless decorations remained. Cramped and haphazard before, the space had seemed modest, if not small.

Now, though, the room bordered on palatial. A simple wooden desk sat at the middle of the far wall, with two identical chairs on either side of it. A matching wood file cabinet was parked underneath. To Samantha’s right, two large windows framed the corner of the room, with a wide view of Darwin’s crowd of skyscrapers.

The view of the crumbling city from here impressed her, despite the fact that she’d seen Darwin from aircraft a thousand times. Samantha could see east to the horizon, over the garden-studded rooftops of the chaotic Maze. South loomed a wall of skyscrapers, the lower floors hidden under a crust of bolted-on rooms where living space had been extended to the maximum. The upper floors were a patchwork quilt of glass panes and improvised coverings in the numerous places where the glass had long ago been broken. Drapes, blankets, and plastic tarps of every color and pattern filled the holes. Some open windowsills had cups, bottles, and buckets along the bottom to catch what rain they could. In wet season every window would, but during these months the chances were few and far between.

With an effort she focused on the immediate room again. Natural light streamed in and fell upon four red love seats that formed a square. Two men sat there, each with a cup of tea in hand. They both stared at her but made no move to get up and greet her. Neither said a word.

“I’ll be with you in a moment, friends,” Grillo said to them. He went to his desk and sat behind it. Above him on the wall an enormous painting had been hung. Two meters tall and a meter wide, the image depicted a ladder stretching up into a cloudy sky. The rails and rungs of the ladder, on closer inspection, were composed of people. They stood on one another’s shoulders, clasped arms, teamed together to hoist others higher, all in order to keep the ladder’s shape solid. The strain on their tiny painted faces was evident, even from where she stood. A superimposed image of Christ on the cross covered all this, with the ladder of course forming the vertical portion.

The presence of the artwork dashed all remaining doubt Sam had as to Grillo’s level of involvement with the sect. He was in deep. Pigs in a blanket.

“Where’s Kelly?” she asked.

Grillo pointed toward a door off to her left. “You have an hour.”

An hour. We could flee. Scale the wall down to the yard and run.

As she stepped through the door, Sam pushed that line of thinking away. Grillo had promised to release Kelly to her if he decided she could be trusted. Months of hard work had her close to that goal, and once achieved they could flee on an aircraft at their whim. Find somewhere far away to live, or—Samantha reminded herself Kelly was not immune. Maybe they could join the runaways, then, wherever they were. Hide somewhere in Darwin as a last resort.

That last would be difficult, she knew. Grillo’s grip on the city spread like a flu, and unless Darwin’s thousands of neighborhood kingdoms got their collective shit together, no one would be able to challenge him. She’d never been a big-picture kind of girl, and she still couldn’t decide if Darwin under Grillo would be a bad thing. There’d be food, order, and law. But she guessed there wouldn’t be much in the way of fun.

Beyond the door, Samantha found another narrow flight of stairs that led to a heavy steel door. A faded plaque indicated “roof access.” Sunlight poured in as she pushed it open, and gravel crunched under her boots.

Sam raised a hand to shield her eyes from the brightness as she scanned the rooftop. Kelly was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a Jacobite nun stood near the edge of the roof, in a hooded robe of white flowing cotton. If not for the frayed hemline at the woman’s feet, the garment could have been brand-new. The Jacobites’ red ladder-and-cross sigil had been painted on the back of the robe. Someone once told Sam the symbol was painted with the acolyte’s own blood as some sort of initiation rite. But she’d seen enough blood splash on her own clothing to know the color was wrong. Too bright, too red.

“Hello?” Sam called out. “I was told I could find Kelly Adelaide here.”

The priestess half-turned, and Samantha recognized her friend instantly. “Hello, Sam.”

Unable to hold it back, Sam erupted into laughter. “What the f*ck are you wearing that for?”

Her laugh died when Kelly’s expression remained impassive. She looked thin, and her mannish hairstyle was gone. Gray-brown hair came down to her neck, combed straight and simple and framed by the white hood.

“No, seriously,” Sam said, composing herself. “What the f*ck are you wearing that robe for?”

“I took the vows,” Kelly said simply. She held out a hand and added, “Come and speak with me.”

Samantha crossed the roof one slow, tentative step at a time. When she stood next to her friend, the woman seemed like a complete stranger. All the fire, all the spunk was gone. Instead she seemed almost demure. Pious, Sam decided, and she wanted to spit.

“It’s good to see you,” Kelly said as if reading a script. Her eyes flicked up and met Sam’s for an instant, and then she cast her gaze downward. “You look well.”

“And you look … Shit, I hardly recognize you,” Samantha said. “What have they done to you?”

Kelly’s lips pursed. “Nothing. I’ve simply discovered my true self, and found salvation.”

The words sounded sincere on the surface. But Samantha knew Kelly. She’d heard her bluff past workers and even guards on Gateway Station.

A gust of hot wind swept over the roof. The white robe billowed around Kelly’s body, revealing her shape beneath, a thin frame. Too thin, Sam thought.

As the wind gusted around them Kelly whispered something. It sounded like “Listen to the ghost.…”

The wind died out, and her strange words trailed off with it. Kelly’s mask of piety returned.

For a time they stood in silence, Kelly soaking in the view of the city and Sam staring at her, looking for some hint as to what she meant. Listen to the ghost? I’m standing right here. How could I not be listening? Possibilities flooded her mind. Scenarios that would lead Kelly to don such vestments, which must be a deception. Perhaps it was part of some elaborate escape plan. Perhaps Kelly didn’t know that Grillo would soon let her leave to stay at the airport.

“Have they treated you well?” Sam asked carefully.

“I have my own room,” Kelly said, as if that settled the matter. Then she saw the dissatisfaction at her answer on Sam’s face and went on. “It’s not a cell, don’t worry. Your work has spared me from that. No, this was a hospital room once, but now it’s more like a hotel. I can see the city from my window. The stadium is magnificent to behold at night. But nothing compares to Jacob’s Ladder, when the climbers are on it. I can see that, too, if I lean against the window.”

Sam’s mind raced. There were enough clues in that statement to guess where they held her. A hospital complex near Grillo’s headquarters in Lyons, just north of the football stadium. Samantha wanted to shout at her friend in frustration. Why tell me this? So I can break you out? You know Grillo plans to release you into my care, so what the hell are you up to?

“Still,” Sam tried, “nothing beats fresh air, yeah?”

“I get all the refreshment I need from reading the Testament,” Kelly said.

In any other situation, Sam would have doubled over in laughter at such a statement from her friend. Here, though, it served only to unnerve her further. Kelly sounded like she meant it.

Kelly stole a sudden glance back toward the door, then leaned in toward Samantha and lowered her voice. “I think they’re hiding something there, at the stadium. What it is I’m not sure, but it’s important. A ‘cube,’ someone called it. I have to find out—”

“I know what it is,” Sam said. “I found it for them. It came from—”

Kelly stepped back, her face hard and judgmental. She pressed a finger to her left ear. “The bird sings,” she said.

Samantha didn’t understand. “What?”

Kelly paid her no attention. “She spoke of it. She’s not ready.”

Before Sam could say anything she heard the sound of the metal door creaking open. She turned to see Grillo at the doorway. He stepped out, and Kelly went to him, taking a place just behind his left shoulder.

“Sam … Sam …,” Grillo said. “I thought we’d come further than this. You disappoint me.”

She thought of protesting or playing dumb, but there seemed no point. She’d been sucker-punched by her last friend in the world, and all these months of work for this jackass were scattered to the hot wind. Sam felt a strong temptation to turn and step off the edge of the roof. She thought this must have been how Skyler felt when he crashed the Melville. Everything gone, taken. Skyler had fought on, though.

“You’ve failed this little test, Miss Rinn. I can’t really blame you, though. You value your friends above all else. To a fault, unfortunately.”

“Nail me to a cross then, a*shole.”

Grillo sucked in his lower lip, the composure on his face faltering for the briefest instant. “Anger is understandable. Your words, forgivable. But blaspheme again, Samantha, and I will show you pain far beyond what the redeemer experienced.”

Any urge she may have felt to test his promise fell away when she saw the calm in his eyes, the absolute confidence. All of a sudden she wanted to be very far away.

“This transgression need not mean an end to our arrangement, Samantha. Just a delay, I’m afraid. I need to know you can be trusted, that you’re truly one of us. Kelly has seen the path—”

“It’s not Kelly anymore,” the thin woman said.

Grillo turned to her, one eyebrow raised.

“I’m ready to take my sister name. I’m ready to leave my former self behind.”

Samantha could only stare at her, the shadow of the woman she thought she’d known.

“Have you chosen a name?” Grillo asked.

“I have,” Kelly replied calmly. “It was my mother’s name.”

Gabby, Sam thought. Kelly had told her many stories of her mum, Gab Gab, and how she’d been the very embodiment of the name. Always talking, always at ease in social settings. Kelly had envied that quality in her childhood, and strove to channel it as an adult.

“Josephine,” Kelly said. “My mother would smile if she could see me now.”

“She can, Sister Josephine,” Grillo said. “I’m sure she’s as proud as I am.”

The name tripped Samantha, like the wrong punch line to a familiar joke. She realized her mouth was agape and snapped it shut, grateful that Grillo was looking at Kelly—Josephine—and not her. Josephine. The name rang a bell. Kelly had mentioned it before. No, Sam thought, she’d used it before.

On Gateway they’d needed access to a new set of security codes, and set about stealing them from a room that stored archival data for the entire station. Sam had assumed they would wait for the room to be empty, but Kelly told her to wait and listen. She’d proceeded then to bluff her way in, claiming to be Josephine and saying she’d forgotten her key card. Her acting had been masterful, Sam recalled, and the technician on duty had waved her in as if they were old friends.

Josephine. A persona Kelly had donned to steal something important. Listen to the ghost. Kelly is working an extremely long con, Sam realized, and this moment, right now, was the tipping point. Her friend wanted to remain in captivity in Lyons, or else whatever plot she’d cooked up would be ruined.

And whatever she was up to, it was important enough to throw Sam under a bus.

With sudden clarity she realized Grillo had been playing them both on the same angle. Convince him of their sincerity, and he’d reward them. Sam had been going along to win Kelly’s freedom, fully intending to escape with her friend at the earliest opportunity. Kelly’s reward seemed to be stature in the Jacobite church. To what end, Sam had no idea.

“So what happens now?” Sam asked, buying time.

Grillo turned back to her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “I’m afraid we’re back to square one. You’ll return to your duties and try to earn my trust again. That, or rot in a cell, I suppose.”

“Maybe I could take the robes, too,” Sam said. “Say my Hail Marys or whatever you guys do.”

“I’m afraid not,” Grillo said. “I’d hoped sending Sister Jo to live with you—Sister Jo, I do like the sound of that! I’d hoped she could bring you to our flock, but I think more time is required. Return to your duties, Sam, and meanwhile I will think on what has happened here.”

“What if I refuse?” she asked.

Grillo sighed. “Then you’ll leave this roof the quick way.”

Outside, the sun baked the city. Dry air raked across the dirty yard of Nightcliff, whipping up bits of trash along with the constant spray of fine sand. Sam could taste the grit of it in her mouth, and would have spat if she could muster the saliva.

The two guards who had escorted her from the building informed her that a car would be along to take her home. Courtesy of Grillo, they did not neglect to mention. Whether it was an offer or an order, she didn’t care. Sam told them she’d rather walk, and she slipped through the patrol door adjacent to the fortress gates before the pair of goons could stop her.

In wet season Ryland Square was a sea of mud. Now, under the crush of sunlight and hot wind, the surface had become a cracked, brittle wasteland that crunched under her boots. Pigeons scattered as she crossed the center of the wide space, but would land again behind her the moment she passed. They squawked and fought over the corpse of a mouse, half-buried in the cake of mud.

It would take hours to walk back to the hangar, but she needed the time and space to think, and that wouldn’t happen unless she avoided the scavenger crews. Lately they seemed incapable of even taking a piss unless she ordered it.

Ryland Square butted against Nightcliff’s southern gate, and skyscrapers framed it on the three other sides. The square, a vast expanse of baked hardpan and broken concrete, was eerily quiet. Food riots, an almost daily occurrence during Russell Blackfield’s stand against the Orbitals, were now a fading memory. Whether that was due to ample supply, or suppressed citizens, Sam didn’t know. The cynic in her assumed the latter, but she’d brought enough soil and gardening equipment to Darwin in the last few months to wonder.

Power remained stable on the Elevator’s cord, a fact that Blackfield tried to take credit for, and the city’s endless supply of street urchins would believe anything as long as their bellies were full.

Grillo understood that tactic as well.

A third explanation for the empty square became obvious as she approached the edge of it. Jacobites milled about the gaps between buildings. She saw only a few at first, but as she walked closer the shadows came alive. There were a dozen of them at least, at just this one entry point. They spanned every age, race, and size, and all were armed with simple hand weapons. One carried an AK-47 on his back. The leader of the little troop, Sam guessed.

She realized then that she’d walked into Darwin unarmed. No wonder Grillo’s bodyguards were so surprised at her refusal of the ride home. The Jacobite thugs nodded at her as she approached, though. They must have watched her since the moment she left Nightcliff’s gate, and no one walked out of there alone and unarmed unless they were damn important. Sam hoped so, anyway.

She ignored them as she passed, save for the one with the rifle. To him she gave a simple, stern nod, which he returned. A gesture of respect, she thought, though his eyes held a measure of contempt. Most likely because she did not wear their robes.

Beyond Nightcliff’s shadow, the city began to show signs of life. Filthy couriers dressed in rags shuffled about barefoot, carrying sacks of unknown contents over their backs. Few people of means braved street level themselves. Much of their business was done with adjacent buildings, and wherever possible zip lines and crude rope bridges spanned the gaps of alleys, high above the ground. For matters that required venturing farther from home, it was far better to send some skinny ground dweller to deliver goods or pick up supplies.

Grillo’s mark was evident out here, too. Jacobite thugs patrolled the streets in packs of four or five, and Sam noted how the ragged citizens gave them wide berths. She wondered if the slumlord’s sudden piety had more to do with the army he now seemed to command than it did any fervent belief as to the nature of the alien cable that stretched up into space.

Whatever. They’re still freaks.

The image of Kelly, wearing those robes as she stood above Darwin, brought the sour taste of bile to Sam’s throat. That moment would haunt her, no doubt. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough, and hopefully she could leave the past where it belonged.

“Keep telling yourself that,” she said.

She reached the airport unmolested. A couple of teens slipped out of an alley in front of her at one point, but it took only the gesture of cracking her knuckles to send them racing away. No mugger wanted a victim who would fight back, especially with all the Jacobites patrolling the area.

The guards at the airport gate were all Nightcliff supplied, and they waved her through without any fuss. Sam noted the total absence of swagmen around the gate. In times past, there would always be a crowd of hopeful petitioners loitering there, hoping to bend the ear of a scavenger to fetch something for them. Skyler used to stop and listen to them, in the early days. Eventually even he had to snub them, though. There was no room for charity work in this world. Not anymore.

A raucous sound came from Woon’s tavern. Laughter and loud voices, common in the late evenings, was rather unusual for two in the afternoon.

Sam saw the backs of twenty people crowded near the door, facing within. Even more patrons were packed inside, all facing the bar. Another roar of laughter went up, and drinks were thrown back.

“What the hell?” she whispered.

She elbowed her way inside, and those behind her quieted. Others picked up the change in mood, turned, and went silent as well. By the time Sam reached the back of the room, all of the merriment had died out.

Their attentions had been focused on a man who sat at the bar, and for a split second her heart leapt. Skyler?

The man’s hair dispelled that. Dark, sloppy dreadlocks. Sam knew that hair, and couldn’t keep the grin from her face as she shouldered past the last row of onlookers.

“Skadz,” she said. “You goddamn son of a bitch!”

“Sammy!” her old captain beamed, a broad smile flashing across his dark-skinned face. “ ’Bout time you got here. I was running out of jokes to feed these blokes.”

She drew him into a soldier’s embrace. “They’ve heard ’em all, I’m sure.”

“Didn’t stop them from laughing.”

She released him from the hug and held him at arm’s length. Skadz, co-founder with Skyler of the original immune crew. The two had traveled together from Amsterdam to Darwin, and found her in no-man’s-land fighting off a pack of subs. She’d killed four by the time they arrived to help, and probably could have handled the rest. Nevertheless, they’d been kind to her, and the three had their immunity in common. With nowhere else to go she’d stuck with them.

Jamaican born, Skadz was adopted by a Dutch family early on. As he told it, his adoptive parents then moved to England to follow the father’s job, before coming back just before SUBS broke out. All this combined into one of the most unique people Sam had ever met. Skadz had the easygoing demeanor of an islander, the enlightened worldview of the Dutch, and the snooty accent of a Londoner.

“You look like you’ve seen a bloody ghost,” he said.

“I’m looking at one,” she shot back. It has been a day of ghosts already.

“Drink?” he asked.

Sam looked around. “Let’s take a bottle to the hangar,” she said.

He nodded, then added a grin that faltered slightly. He’d been away for more than a year, and must have noted the Nightcliff guards at the gate, and at his old hangar. No Melville inside, and no Skyler to greet him, either.

“You’ve got a million questions, I’ll bet,” Sam said. She grabbed a random bottle off the counter and offered a peace sign to Woon, who just nodded. Everyone loved Skadz, and Woon perhaps most of all. Outside the old crew, and Prumble, Woon had been the most surprised when the Jamaican had walked away from everything without a single goodbye.

“At least that many,” her old captain agreed. He knew enough to hold them back, though.

She led him toward the hangar in silence. By now word of his presence at the airport had traveled to everyone, even those who didn’t know him from before. A half-dozen people shook his hand or simply said “welcome back” as they weaved through the ragtag armada of scavenger ships that sat on the crumbling tarmac.

Sam stole glances at her old friend as they walked. He looked five kilos lighter than when he’d left, and a thin black beard grew on his chin and neck. His hair looked like a dirty bird’s nest, but that was nothing new. There’d been a time when Skadz fussed over maintaining his throwback hairstyle. Clearly that hadn’t been a priority while living outside the city.

A pair of Nightcliff guards stood to either side of the hangar door. They eyed the newcomer with open suspicion but said nothing. Sam rolled the heavy doors closed behind them and waited until the booming clang reverberated through the building before she turned to face her friend.

Whatever she’d been about to say, the words died on her lips. Skadz stood facing the empty hangar, shaking his head. “I thought maybe you guys were out on a mission, and the blokes at Woon’s were just f*cking with me.”

“It’s no joke,” Sam said. “The Mel is gone. Crashed.”

“Skyler go down with it?”

“Many think so, but no. He survived. A lot of shit’s happened since then, though. If he’s alive now, I have no idea. It’s a long story.”

Skadz digested that for a moment, and grunted. “So where is he? Where’s Jake? And where’s Prumble? I stopped at the garage on my walk in and it looked like the place had been bombed.”

Samantha bit back her answer. There were more important things to discuss. “What are you doing here, Skadz? What do you want?”

“Huh?” he asked, and glanced over his shoulder at her. “This is my hangar.”

“Like hell it is.”

He burst into laughter then, and pointed at her. “The look on your bloody face! C’mon, Sammy, relax. I came in for a bit of trade with the big man, and thought I’d say hello. Let’s open that bottle, yeah? I’ll stay the night, and we can trade our stories.”

“Stories,” Sam repeated.

“Yeah. Though I’ll be damned if mine is even a tenth as interesting as yours. Holy shit, Sam, what the hell happened here?”

She ignored the question. “You walk away without warning, for a year, and the reason you come back is to do business with Prumble? Where the hell have you been?”

“Here and there,” he said with a shrug. “Spent some time down in Derby, but mostly I just wandered. Walkabout, the locals call it, yeah? It’s as boring as it sounds.”

“If it was so boring why’d you go? Why’d you stay away so long?”

“Boring is exactly what I wanted, Sammy. What can I say? I cracked. I hated being the candy man for an entire city.”

She stepped up close to him, using her height out of habit, and looked down into his bloodshot eyes. “That’s it? You couldn’t handle the responsibility?”

He said nothing. Instead he gave her an exaggerated shrug.

“What a crock of shit,” Sam said.

Skadz swallowed hard. “Fine, you need to know? Someone died.”

“Lots of people die. Everyone, in fact.”

“Someone died because I didn’t scavenge what they needed.”

“Who?”

“Remember Mary? The sheila I was seeing down in Hidden Valley?”

Sam nodded. “Shit. She died?”

Skadz shook his head. “Her daughter. Seven years old, cute as hell. She had this condition, called … doesn’t matter. I promised to find the meds she needed.” He hung his head. “No, f*ck that. It’s not that I couldn’t find the damn pills, it’s that I bloody forgot, all right? The lists back then were huge. Our missions totally mental. One request out of hundreds slipped my mind and Mary’s little girl died.”

“That …” Sam paused, searching for words. “It’s tragic, but not the worst thing—”

“You want to know the worst part? Okay. Mary told me to apologize to the girl, before they cremated her. Told me to say something that might make her understand. And I tried, Sam, I f*cking tried, but I … I couldn’t remember her name, Sammy. The little girl. Her name was just, gone. Mary spotted it in my face and flew into a rage, threw my scatterbrained ass out, and told me never to come back. I still can’t remember that little girl’s name, Sam.”

Sam backed off a step. “Jesus H. Why didn’t you just tell us?”

“I already had to deal with seeing her accusing f*cking stare every time I closed my eyes, Sammy. Didn’t need to see the same every time I talked to you. You or anyone else.”

“It wouldn’t have been like that.”

“Wouldn’t it? I can see it now, in your freaky blue eyes.”

“Don’t. I’m just surprised to see my old friend, that’s all. I’m not going to judge you, Skadz. That’s in the past, and … F*ck, man, billions of people died. You’re pretty damn low on the list of bad guys.”

He glared at her. A flash of that temper she knew too well. Then Skadz sucked in a long breath through flared nostrils, and the hardness in his face melted.

“If it’s any consolation,” Sam said, “Skyler almost ran us into the ground after you left. But then …”

“Then?”

Sam motioned for him to sit. “Neil Platz hired us, and truly did run us into the ground.”
Darwin, Australia

29.SEP.2283

RUSSELL BLACKFIELD WOUND up, sucked in a sharp breath, and heaved with both hands.

The Jacobite painting flew from the roof of Nightcliff’s tower like a Frisbee, spinning in a flat trajectory for a moment before it banked and veered to the right. A second later the flight turned to more of a plummet, down into the depths of hell. That’s fitting, he mused as he wiped his hands together.

He watched the canvas tumble and flutter until it disappeared just over the wall of the fortress.

“He scores!” Russell shouted as he thrust his fists into the air. A faint echo of his cheer rebounded off the skyscrapers that huddled next to the fortress like beggars at a trash fire. Somewhere a dog barked viciously, and he even saw a few candles lit in the tower windows at his booming cheer. Two in the morning might not have been the best time for his rampage, in hindsight.

He had to imagine the horrible excuse for artwork, now that it had left his field of view. The cult’s sacred image, lying in a heap near Ryland Square, waiting to be ripped apart by Darwin’s pickers when the sun rose.

It was almost enough to quench his rage. Almost.

Russell stood there, at the edge of the roof, and inhaled. The air tasted worse than it smelled. Stagnant ocean with a hint of piss, a classic Darwin vintage amplified by time spent above. Atmosphere on the space stations was sterile with a faint hint of metal and silicon. Once in a while he’d catch a whiff of flatulence not his own, but otherwise it was like breathing nothing.

He’d completely forgotten the giant armpit Darwin turned into when the rains went away. It would be even worse when the sun rose.

The skyline before him had changed since he’d last seen it. Seen in the dead of night it took him a moment to figure it out, but once he knew, he couldn’t help but be impressed. Gardens, he thought. He could see the foliage, the greenhouse tents, silhouetted against a starry sky. F*cking gardens everywhere. Had the slumlord succeeded so completely? The thought bewildered him. Even more confusing was how they could water and fertilize so much growth. It implied a level of organization he would have sworn was impossible.

“No wonder they haven’t been complaining about food,” he said to himself. “And after I went to all that trouble to get some of the bloody farms back, too.”

He shrugged. So Grillo had accomplished his task. Good, now I can thank him and send him back to his maze. Breathing through his mouth, Russell stomped back to the door and trudged down the stairs to his office.

My bloody office. It felt like an alien world. Grillo not only had decided his mandate included remaking the office, but the posh bastard also seemed to have a penchant for interior decorating. The space was clean, warm, inviting, and devoid of any personality.

The painting had been the only thing with any meaning. Russell grinned again at the thought of it crumpled and broken in the dusty alley below the wall.

A quick search of the room failed to turn up any alcohol, so Russell went to the double doors, opened them enough to see the anxious guards fidgeting there, and barked a request for vodka. The two men looked at each other as if he’d spoken to them in Swahili.

“Whatever you can find, then,” Russell said. “I need a drink.”

Neither man moved.

“Now!”

He shouted so loud that both men flinched. One finally broke away and shuffled off down a side hall. Russell sneered at the one who remained, then slammed the doors closed.

A few minutes later a soft knock at the door preceded the entrance of a bleary-eyed administrator.

“Kip Osmak,” Russell said. He’d plopped himself into the sleek office chair Grillo had placed behind the simple desk. “What a pleasant surprise.”

The greasy, feeble man stepped into the room and set a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the desk. He put a single shot glass next to it.

Russell plucked the cup and flipped it in the air, catching it deftly. He examined it, and though it looked clean he made a show of wiping it with his undershirt. “It’s been awhile, Kip. How the hell are you?”

The man fidgeted. He turned back and forth between Russell and the exit, his stringy gray hair swaying about his face with the movement.

“Somewhere to be?” Russell asked.

“I’m fine. Good. No, nowhere especially.”

“Sit,” Russell said. “Drink.” He poured a shot and pushed the glass toward the man.

“I’ll pass, if you don’t mind,” Kip said.

“I do mind.”

“Uh,” Kip muttered. He wrung his hands together, relented, and picked up the glass.

Russell hoisted the bottle in a silent toast and tilted it back. The liquid burned in his throat before giving way to pleasant warmth. Kip only sipped his drink, Russell saw.

“What’s the matter with you?” Russell asked.

“It’s two in the morning. We weren’t expecting you.”

“Clearly.”

Before Russell could interrogate the pathetic man for information, the doors swung open again. Grillo entered. Even at the odd hour, he wore a tailored suit and had not a hair out of place. Still, it had taken him an hour to get here since Russell stepped off the climber.

“You may leave, Mr. Osmak,” Grillo said in a calm voice. “And thank you for the prompt alert of our guest’s arrival.” The two guards remained at the threshold of the room, and when Kip hurried past they stepped out and closed the doors behind them.

Russell leaned back in the modern, uncomfortable office chair and plopped his feet on the desk.

Grillo, to his credit, simply took the guest chair opposite, and clasped his hands in front of him. “Welcome back, Russell,” he said.

“I thought we might chat.”

“Of course. Please.”

“Do you want to say a little prayer first, or anything like that?”

A flicker of anger shone in the man’s eyes, then vanished. If he’d noticed the missing painting, he hid it well. “I’ll be fine.”

“Drink?”

“No. Thank you. Why are you here, Russell?”

Blackfield spread his hands wide. “This is my office. Am I unwelcome?”

“I mean on the ground,” Grillo said thinly. “Of course you are always welcome, but I thought we had everything running to your satisfaction.”

“Very much so,” Russell said. “In fact, I was so impressed by your status reports that I found them hard to believe.” He pressed the tip of his index finger onto the desk and held it there.

Grillo said nothing. His face betrayed nothing.

Russell Blackfield slid his finger across the desk and then checked it for dust. He found none, then smelled it just to be an ass. “Thought I’d come see for myself. First things first, you really ought to fire your decorator. This place is as bland as a piece of toast.”

“I could have it restored to—”

“Don’t bother,” Russell said. “It suits you.”

Grillo smoothed his pant legs. “Well, regarding my progress here. If you found my report unbelievable, perhaps another tour would dispel your concerns.”

“Nah, I saw the gardens from the roof. Nice trick, that. How’d you do it? How’d you get all those f*ckers to work together?”

“Don’t you recall my demonstration? I offer them a carrot and a stick, and they get to choose one.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Carrots are quite popular in a starving city.”

Russell nodded. He understood that, though he preferred to offer two sticks. “Same goes for this Jacobite act? You give them a little hail-Jacob-on-high blah-blah nonsense, and they line up to suck your willy?”

Grillo’s bottom lip pursed inward, his temples bulged. There, Russell thought, I got under your skin for once. How’s it feel?

“My beliefs are my business,” Grillo said. “And regardless, the Jacobites have brought peace to the streets. Something as alien to this city as the Elevator itself.”

“Don’t you mean ladder?”

Grillo leveled a gaze on Russell that could have withered a fresh rose. “My personal life is not your concern. You gave me six months,” he said. “It’s been five, and I have given you no reason to doubt my success.”

“Darwin on a serving plate, yeah. But what happens at six months?”

At that Grillo shrugged. “That’s for you to decide.”

“Really?”

“It’s your city. Do as you like.”

Russell knew bullshit when he heard it, even from a true master of the art.

The glorified slumlord went on. “I hope you will see the benefits and perhaps extend our arrangement another six months. Your focus should be on the future of our civilization, after all, not which street gang holds which street.”

“True enough,” Russell agreed. He liked the sound of that and let it settle on his shoulders like a warm blanket. “Which brings me to the real reason for my visit.”

“Oh?”

Russell took a swig from the bottle and set it down with a deliberate thump. “We’ve found our runaways, and the rest of the farms.”

“That is excellent news.”

“Thanks to both our efforts, the farms are no longer a card they can play, though I haven’t called them on that bluff yet.”

“Why?”

Russell grinned. “If we still need food, we’ll keep sending people for it.”

“You intend to continue this trade?”

The grin on Russell’s face widened. “One more time, is all. Ten squads, armed to the teeth.”

Grillo nodded slowly. “So many men? That’s a risk, isn’t it? Your stations will be understaffed.”

“That’s where you come in.” He felt a pang of pride at the way Grillo sat forward now. “I’d like you to send up a security detail to fill in. Temporary, right? Good fighters, loyal.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Russell thought of that strange black tower, and the nightmare creature that cut through Tania’s fighters like a machete. A shudder ran through him, and he hoped Grillo didn’t notice. He would have a sudden change in plans when Grillo’s men arrived in orbit. He’d send them to the meat grinder. Let them take the risk, and at the same time deplete Grillo’s strength here. Then his own people could sweep in and clean up. Perfect.

“Perfect. Have them on a climber before the week is out,” Russell said. “I’ll need some time to train them for zero-g combat.”

“A week is impossible. Every available fighter is deployed. A month would be better.”

Russell shrugged. Tania wasn’t going anywhere. A silence followed. He sipped from the bottle.

“Is there anything else?” Grillo asked.

“One more thing. I want to bring the immune, Samantha, with us when we go after the traitors. She was part of their little rebellion, and it might be that I can use her as bait. But when I went to the brig to fetch her, I found she wasn’t there. The guard said she hasn’t been there in months, nor the other. Kelly, I think her name was.”

Grillo nodded, slowly. “I have other uses for them. It would be difficult to end that arrangement right now.”

“No mention of that in your reports.”

“There are numerous things I don’t bore you with. I figured you wouldn’t care about a couple of prisoners rotting in cells.”

An old rage welled inside Russell Blackfield. A lot of things irritated him, but perhaps nothing more so than people who thought they knew his mind. He looked at the bottle of crap whiskey in his hand and thought of how satisfying it would be to smash the thing across Grillo’s smooth-combed hair. “You found uses for them, eh? Playthings for your men?” He conjured an image of the tall blond immune, a head taller than he. How I want to climb that mountain.

Grillo had been looking at the floor, as if in prayer. He glanced up without moving his head, and for a second Russell saw wrath in those eyes. “Your brig proved insufficient to hold them, you should know. I thought it prudent to have them moved, but then I thought that still might not work. I realized I could accomplish two goals, then. So Kelly now resides at my own facility, under constant watch.”

“And the immune?”

“Samantha is in charge of the scavenger crews at the airport.”

“At the … wait, in charge?”

“In charge, and doing a fantastic job. Holding Kelly’s safety over her has proved a remarkable motivator.”

“I still think it’s a bad idea. She’s nothing special. Nice rack, hell of a right hook, and that’s about it.”

“She’s immune. There are some who think that marks her as one of God’s chosen.”

Russell barked a laugh. “Or, you know, it’s just some random genetic whatever. No need to get all biblical on the topic.”

Grillo refused to rise to the bait. “The fact is, the scavenger crews were sitting on their hands after that business in Africa. Not anymore.”

Heat rose on Russell’s cheeks. His hand tightened on the neck of the glass bottle and it took a conscious effort to keep from swinging it. “Going to rub my nose in that again, eh?”

Grillo waved his hands. “That’s not what I meant at all. I’m simply saying the crews were idle after that. Afraid and unsure of their status in your airspace. Samantha has them running like a Swiss watch now. It’s really quite impressive.”

“I’m sure.” Russell found no path he could take to argue the point. He knew all too well the benefits of having a functional scavenger corps, and the immunes were the cream of that crop. It galled him, however, that Grillo had thought of it. More than that, he’d pulled it off. Scavenger crews running, the city calm and producing nearly all the food it needed … deep down he knew he’d never have been able to accomplish the same thing.

I did, though. I put this bloody rat in charge. Russell had no qualms about taking credit for that. Great leaders delegate.